Urban Design for an Urban Century: Shaping More Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities

Outstanding, comprehensive and well illustrated text

The text seems quite up-to-date, discussing innovations through 2013. Many examples from around the world, with parallels drawn between them. I particularly appreciated the discussion of how urban planners can make work towards goals like making sites "terrorist-resistant" while also make them more pleasant urban centers. Wall Street was used as the main example there. The theme of making cities nicer by reducing accommodation for automobiles recurs throughout. Audacious plans are made reasonable by showing examples of other sites where similar plans worked well. So the opening of the LA River, which seems a pipe dream, becomes more persuasive when one can see how a similar project succeeded in Seoul, Korea.I can't comment as a professor or student of urban planning, but as somebody who has spent a lot of time in various cities, I enjoyed this book.

I'm not an architect or city planner, but I've had an interest in urban design since reading Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." "Urban Design for an Urban Century" is not only great on the topic, but it isn't written in a hard-to-follow style (although it is a kind of textbook).The first part of the book -- an intro to urban planning and a historical survey -- was the most interesting to me. The second part -- contemporary issues and current case studies -- is sketchier but still worthwhile. I'd recommend the book for anyone interested in the past and possible future of urban design.

This is a great book, but only because it does a great job of setting forth a path one can follow. It allows the reader to follow what urban design was and the progress it made to the present day. It also does a great job of illustrating why this matters for all of us. It is highly informative, but not in a way that is to inaccessible. Get it and enjoy.

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that I thought the introduction to urban design drug on. Once I got past that section, the rest of the book was full of great examples and case studies of how to improve the liveability of our cities. The text is easy to read and the authors really seem to know their stuff.

I'm not a student of urban design but have grown curious after having living in the "walking cities" of Boston, Philadelphia and NYC. Urban Design for an Urban Century discusses the history of urban design as a concept, the trends both in the past and present as well as different factors that make certain areas livable and attractive. I found particularly interesting the details and examples of works that were particularly influential. The authors give a good grounding in the material without becoming dry or overwhelming the reader with information.The book's Table of Contents and Index are sufficiently detailed that the reader can search for the specific areas (Boston's South End) or by building or designer/planner/architects.